HLV-SF-SECONF-002: Pre-Evaluation Freeze for a Native Structural-Obstruction and Admissible-Path Test in the HLV Strong-Force Programme

This archive records the prospectively frozen protocol HLV-SF-SECONF-002 for the next structural-confinement gate in the Helix-Light-Vortex (HLV) strong-force programme. The protocol follows the earlier SE-CONF result, which supported an energetic/stability-type closure mechanism (E-ONLY) but did not establish a genuine structural obstruction to separation. SECONF-002 therefore asks a stronger and logically prior question: Does the finite HLV carrier together with its native three-channel complex-field structure prohibit a continuous source-free deformation from a closed ring sector to a prospectively defined separated-channel target? A central methodological feature of the freeze is the explicit separation of two admissible configuration spaces: (1) A_native, corresponding to the native source-field definition rho_a >= 0, in which amplitude zeros remain admissible; and (2) A_nz, a conditional non-vanishing subspace satisfying |psi_a| >= rho_min > 0. This distinction is load-bearing. Ordinary phase winding is homotopically protected only while the corresponding complex field remains nonzero. Consequently, an obstruction that exists only after imposing a non-vanishing condition cannot automatically be interpreted as a native HLV confinement mechanism unless that condition is independently derived from the source theory. The freeze prospectively specifies: • the native and conditional admissible state spaces; • the closed/source-free ring sector; • a non-circular separated-channel target; • the singular set associated with amplitude zeros; • the admissible continuous-path class; • an explicit zero-amplitude bypass audit; • the candidate quantity chi_gamma = n_1 n_2 n_3, treated only as an invariant candidate rather than assumed to be independently conserved; • matched non-HLV host controls; • separate structural-obstruction and HLV-specificity verdict vocabularies; • strict limitations on what numerical path searches can establish; • anti-retrofitting rules excluding X(2370), Y(2240), GlueX observations, known SU(3) representations, and external hadron masses from post-freeze tuning of the structural definitions. A constructive admissible path is sufficient to refute the proposed native structural obstruction. Conversely, failure of a finite numerical path search is explicitly not accepted as proof of global path-disconnectedness. Possible structural outcomes are prospectively restricted to: NATIVE_STRUCTURAL_OBSTRUCTION_ESTABLISHED NO_NATIVE_STRUCTURAL_OBSTRUCTION CONDITIONAL_NONVANISHING_OBSTRUCTION_ONLY STRUCTURAL_STATUS_UNRESOLVED STRUCTURAL_PROTOCOL_INVALID A separate verdict is required for HLV specificity. This archive contains a pre-evaluation protocol only. It contains no SECONF-002 scientific result and makes no claim of QCD confinement, SU(3) color confinement, Yang-Mills mass gap, physical string tension, glueball identification, or validation of HLV as a fundamental physical theory. The intended next step is an analytic theorem/counterexample audit before any large numerical execution. Numerical work is permitted only where it addresses genuinely unresolved finite questions under the frozen definitions.